On Friday we slept in a bit after staying out so late for the concert. I texted my dad “We’re starting to get up. Sorry we slept so late!” To which he responded, “I prefer my pilots well rested…lol.” Ha. Good point!
We weren’t in any hurry to get out of town (and were actually waiting for the clouds to break a bit before we flew back), so we had a leisurely morning.
We had breakfast at Hen House Eatery, which I randomly found while looking for a place with some vegan options. It turned out to be very popular, with a line out the door and a wait for a table! I wonder if it’s normally that busy or just after days that have events? We saw lots of people with AC/DC shirts on.
After eating, I am guessing it’s like that normally – I got a vegan hash and it was delicious!
After breakfast we walked around a bit, checking out the Basilica of Saint Mary,
and the Minneapolis Sculpture Garden. I was pretty excited to get to see “Spoonbridge and Cherry”!
We got an Uber to Crystal Airport (MIC) just after 1:00. Then we did flight things a bit out of order since we needed to get fuel.
First, we went to the bathroom (priorities), then Steven preflighted the plane, then we drove over to fuel (which required talking to air traffic control (ATC) because of the kind of space we had to cross).
We haven’t fueled the plane very often on our own, and each airport has a little different system, but the instructions were pretty good on this one, and I dare say it was our most successful fueling experience so far. We put 11 gallons in each tank – a bit less than what they can hold – we still had to be mindful of the useful load of the plane!
After fueling we moved the plane out of the way and shut the engine off (since we get charged by how long the engine is running) to do a briefing for our flight. We downloaded the packet that included all the visual flight rules (VFR) information I might need in case the transponder dropped wifi again (it did).
Then we did run-up on one of the taxiways. After we did it and talked to ATC they informed us there is a run-up area right before you enter the runway. This is more a note for me and Steven – we usually see these areas after we do run-up, and need to figure out if they are indicated somehow on the airport diagrams, because we’ve looked and it’s not clear to us!
Anyway, ATC was just being helpful with that info and it reminded us we want to look it up (or ask the Chief Instructor at Skill about it).
A plane took off before us, then it was our turn (we left at 2:34). Oh! I didn’t mention, there was WAY more traffic than the previous day. There must have been 8-10 departures since we got there? The clouds were higher than the day before, you could see the sun, and lots of planes were out!
So that made things interesting. We had to contend with all the general aviation (GA) planes flying under the MSP Bravo airspace, and the commercial planes in the Bravo airspace (which felt like they were under the Bravo?! Or maybe commercial planes just appear that way when they are headed your direction from a few miles away.). If you look at the image below we are the blue plane on the left, and all the teal markers with numbers are planes in the sky. And this screenshot isn’t even of the busiest time!
So, we were happy to get out from under the Bravo airspace.
But then! As soon as we got out from under the Bravo we went right by two Delta airports which were also very busy, including a plane that kept turning toward us near our altitude. UGH. And did I mention that is when I lost wifi and all tracking on the iPad? Ha.
We were glad to get out of that area, too. Then it was just us and the beautiful blue sky and clouds.
We were telling Dad how the sun heats up the air between the clouds and creates thermals (connective currents of rising air) which moves the plane around a bit. The same happens over bodies of water.
All day I had been teasing Steven about flying between openings in the clouds, which you are allowed to do – you just need an opening to get back down if you are a VFR pilot (an Instrument Flight Rules (IFR) pilot could fly through the cloud).
So he saw an opening and went for it – with the plan to come right back down. It was fun to tilt the plane up and just see sky and get so close to the clouds (still a mile away horizontally as required). But we didn’t make it through the opening and up above the clouds, and just came back down. Maybe next time, Dad!
The rest of the flight was chill! As we got closer to Iowa, the clouds became less broken and more overcast. It was pretty moody around the Waterloo airport.
We landed at 4:11, and tied the plane down, and my snis was waiting for us with ice cream treats! She’s the best!
As soon as we got back to the house I immediately changed into joggers and a sweatshirt. I wanted to be cozy and warm. We got stuff to make crunchwraps for dinner, had those, then had a blast playing Over/Under. I never would have guessed that I’d be crying and laughing playing a game where as a group you have to come up with the answer to a question and the judge decides if you’re “over,” “under,” or “spot on,” but here we are! We now have a bunch of inside jokes from this game and I can’t wait to play it again. We also had fun playing Happy Salmon. It was a great night!
